A lot of people judge Sega CD based on web reviews, well try this list.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Eye of The Beholder
This game has full audio speech with animated cutscenes that make the the best version, with awesome graphics and a great experience, the mazes are well designed, and if you are like me and dont resort to maps right away, the challenge is great. This game can be played with a 6 button pad to make combat access faster and moving around the dungeons is faster. It has a great story for a game that is mostly dungeon exploring, theres a good amount of cut scenes too.
Sonic CD
My 2nd favorite Sonic game, this one really is awesome. Featuring time travel from past to present to future in real time you can do this multiple times in one act, go to past, then future, then present for example, changing the level structure and enemies and items and rings. It's awesome.
Ecco The Dolphin and Ecco Tides of Time
An amazing series, these 2 really shine on Sega CD. Tides of Time even has cut scenes that look great for a system that came out in 1992. The first Ecco has amazing level design as does the 2nd yet Tides of Time adds some new things and slightly better level design. You can travel through time in this game.
Popful Mail
An amazing action rpg, think of a side scroller with great gameplay, a full rpg system with gold, experience, equipment, a story, and amazing bright colorful graphics. The gameplay alone make it a great 2d action game, with many rpg elements.
Dark Wizard
My favorite strategy game of all time. It gets serious, it functions on a hex grid meaning its a little more complex than Shining Force to begin with, and between managing recruiting and traveling between lands to previous lands and keeping an eye on enemies it gets very complex at times. Very awesome with full cut scenes and over a 5 minute opening with a full speech of the introduction!! Made by Sega themselves, so awesome.
Sol Feace
An amazing horizontal shooter, like what there is a lot of on Saturn. The gameplay and graphics are way ahead compared to any 2d shooters at the time, 1992, 1993, nothing could compare. Sega CD was the most advanced system available. The challenge gets very high, the main focus in 2d shooters usually for a lot of people is large bullet patterns and a lot of enemies to look out for, it has that and giant sprites! Amazing for such an old shooter.
Lunar The Silver Star and Lunar Eternal Blue
I haven't played much of these, yet pure amazing. Full colorful cut scenes, with amazing graphics. Better than a lot of rpgs at the time, the stories are very well written, with the translating company Working Designs using humor at times. The combat system was totally innovative then, where you have to really pay attention especially during boss battles, as placement of your characters matters, and you can move them around to keep out of enemy attacks. The enemy spells have range, which is actually existant, you can be out of the way. Very awesome games.
Blackhole Assault
A very very early Sega CD game. A 2d fighter robot style, with very technical gameplay. The way jumping and attacking function make it very serious to get talented at it, and if you can actually find someone to play with competing is very fun compared to standard fighting games. Very unknown, yet awesome because of the technical aspects of the fighting. Can get serious.
Tomcat Alley
Mega challenge!! Be careful, you have 1 second to fire your missles after locking on by stage 2!! Later on it gets very very difficult, if you miss more than a few times, you wont have enough missles to finish, this game becomes so difficult it almost must be perfect gameplay to complete it. Yet it functions with full video as the gameplay while targeting live action planes, and full interaction between pilots with real live acting. A full motion video game done great, I hate when these types of games get bashed all together, some are ok, some arent, and this one is amazing. Made by Sega.
Time Gal
Very early release, plays much like the quick time events in Shen Mue. Yet it gets much more difficult, this is all during animated cut scenes that are very anime style usually. Awesome awesome game. If you like that aspect of Shen Mue this is more serious version of that gameplay, with very cool animation and ideas put into scenes. It keeps its appeal, and much replay as the challenge is great.
Double Switch
I didn't like Night Trap, and Double Switch is kinda like it but much much better. This one you trap enemies during real time video with live acting, and it gets very difficult. Very. You have to watch close, its much more serious than Night Trap, you have to watch right as soon as an enemy is triggering a trap based on the video itself, like seeing right where he is, then you trap him. Sometimes you have less than a second to trigger it, and if you miss a few times later in the game, you lose. Very challenging, another full motion video game done quite awesome. The story is interesting also, you watch it progress in real time video as you play it.
After Burner III
This is a Sega CD exclusive the only way to play the official sequel to the ever popular After Burner 2 arcade game. It is done quite well, lives to the name, while being a little different so its not exactly the same. It's hard to just make a sequel without changing it a little. It's very challenging and is another Sega arcade style game with awesome graphics, CD audio, and great gameplay!!
Shining Force CD
I haven't played it much, but it's very similar to the Genesis games with better colors and slightly better graphics over all. The amazing gameplay to this game lives on from Shining Force 1 and 2 on Genesis.
That's 15 amazing Sega CD games, all so much worth owning. I sold my Sega CD stuff a while ago though now I have an original model 1 Sega CD and am going to get all of these and more Sega CD games eventually. Something worth mentioning is the 5 in 1 and arcade collection for it, it has Columns, Streets of Rage, and others, and I'm not sure but the audio is probably better than the Genesis versions, I haven't played it. Streets of Rage has awesome music to me, so I am getting this as well, it's most likely updated audio, and at least on CD the quality should definatley be a good amount better.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Eye of The Beholder
This game has full audio speech with animated cutscenes that make the the best version, with awesome graphics and a great experience, the mazes are well designed, and if you are like me and dont resort to maps right away, the challenge is great. This game can be played with a 6 button pad to make combat access faster and moving around the dungeons is faster. It has a great story for a game that is mostly dungeon exploring, theres a good amount of cut scenes too.
Sonic CD
My 2nd favorite Sonic game, this one really is awesome. Featuring time travel from past to present to future in real time you can do this multiple times in one act, go to past, then future, then present for example, changing the level structure and enemies and items and rings. It's awesome.
Ecco The Dolphin and Ecco Tides of Time
An amazing series, these 2 really shine on Sega CD. Tides of Time even has cut scenes that look great for a system that came out in 1992. The first Ecco has amazing level design as does the 2nd yet Tides of Time adds some new things and slightly better level design. You can travel through time in this game.
Popful Mail
An amazing action rpg, think of a side scroller with great gameplay, a full rpg system with gold, experience, equipment, a story, and amazing bright colorful graphics. The gameplay alone make it a great 2d action game, with many rpg elements.
Dark Wizard
My favorite strategy game of all time. It gets serious, it functions on a hex grid meaning its a little more complex than Shining Force to begin with, and between managing recruiting and traveling between lands to previous lands and keeping an eye on enemies it gets very complex at times. Very awesome with full cut scenes and over a 5 minute opening with a full speech of the introduction!! Made by Sega themselves, so awesome.
Sol Feace
An amazing horizontal shooter, like what there is a lot of on Saturn. The gameplay and graphics are way ahead compared to any 2d shooters at the time, 1992, 1993, nothing could compare. Sega CD was the most advanced system available. The challenge gets very high, the main focus in 2d shooters usually for a lot of people is large bullet patterns and a lot of enemies to look out for, it has that and giant sprites! Amazing for such an old shooter.
Lunar The Silver Star and Lunar Eternal Blue
I haven't played much of these, yet pure amazing. Full colorful cut scenes, with amazing graphics. Better than a lot of rpgs at the time, the stories are very well written, with the translating company Working Designs using humor at times. The combat system was totally innovative then, where you have to really pay attention especially during boss battles, as placement of your characters matters, and you can move them around to keep out of enemy attacks. The enemy spells have range, which is actually existant, you can be out of the way. Very awesome games.
Blackhole Assault
A very very early Sega CD game. A 2d fighter robot style, with very technical gameplay. The way jumping and attacking function make it very serious to get talented at it, and if you can actually find someone to play with competing is very fun compared to standard fighting games. Very unknown, yet awesome because of the technical aspects of the fighting. Can get serious.
Tomcat Alley
Mega challenge!! Be careful, you have 1 second to fire your missles after locking on by stage 2!! Later on it gets very very difficult, if you miss more than a few times, you wont have enough missles to finish, this game becomes so difficult it almost must be perfect gameplay to complete it. Yet it functions with full video as the gameplay while targeting live action planes, and full interaction between pilots with real live acting. A full motion video game done great, I hate when these types of games get bashed all together, some are ok, some arent, and this one is amazing. Made by Sega.
Time Gal
Very early release, plays much like the quick time events in Shen Mue. Yet it gets much more difficult, this is all during animated cut scenes that are very anime style usually. Awesome awesome game. If you like that aspect of Shen Mue this is more serious version of that gameplay, with very cool animation and ideas put into scenes. It keeps its appeal, and much replay as the challenge is great.
Double Switch
I didn't like Night Trap, and Double Switch is kinda like it but much much better. This one you trap enemies during real time video with live acting, and it gets very difficult. Very. You have to watch close, its much more serious than Night Trap, you have to watch right as soon as an enemy is triggering a trap based on the video itself, like seeing right where he is, then you trap him. Sometimes you have less than a second to trigger it, and if you miss a few times later in the game, you lose. Very challenging, another full motion video game done quite awesome. The story is interesting also, you watch it progress in real time video as you play it.
After Burner III
This is a Sega CD exclusive the only way to play the official sequel to the ever popular After Burner 2 arcade game. It is done quite well, lives to the name, while being a little different so its not exactly the same. It's hard to just make a sequel without changing it a little. It's very challenging and is another Sega arcade style game with awesome graphics, CD audio, and great gameplay!!
Shining Force CD
I haven't played it much, but it's very similar to the Genesis games with better colors and slightly better graphics over all. The amazing gameplay to this game lives on from Shining Force 1 and 2 on Genesis.
That's 15 amazing Sega CD games, all so much worth owning. I sold my Sega CD stuff a while ago though now I have an original model 1 Sega CD and am going to get all of these and more Sega CD games eventually. Something worth mentioning is the 5 in 1 and arcade collection for it, it has Columns, Streets of Rage, and others, and I'm not sure but the audio is probably better than the Genesis versions, I haven't played it. Streets of Rage has awesome music to me, so I am getting this as well, it's most likely updated audio, and at least on CD the quality should definatley be a good amount better.
